Improvement in toy money-boxes



J. DHBUTLER... TOY MONEYBOX.

Patented March 7,1876.

No. 17..g10

FIGA'.

jlwms N. PETERS. PHOTO-LITHOGRAPHER. WASHXNGYON, D. C.

UN rTED STATES PATENT orrrcn.

JAMES D. BUTLER,YOF LANCASTER, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOR TO ELISHA Gr. SELOHOW, OF NEW YORK, AND J OHN H. FIGHTER, OF BROOKLYN, N. Y.

IMPROVEMENT m TOY MONEY-BOXES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 1 74,410, dated March 7, 1876; application filed November 11, 1875.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, JAMES D. BUTLER, of Lancaster, in the county of Worcester and State of Massachusetts, have invented a Toy Bank, of which the following is specification:

The bank is made with an opening in. the

front, through which one of a set of pictures is seen. The putting of a coin into the bank causes the moving of the pictures, so that another one is brought into view in place of the one previously seen. I give to the invention the name Panorama Bank. Figure 1 is a front elevation of the bank. Fig. 2 is a section of the same, taken through line A B of Fig. 1. Fig. 4 is a plan of the same. Fig. 3 represents a modified form of the invention; Fig. 5, another modified form; Fig. 6, a third modified form.

In Figs. 1, 2, and 4, R S represent a house. In the front of it is the opening X. A prism, G D E, supported upon the shaft F, is opposite to the opening X. Upon each of the faces 0 E, E D, and D U of the prism is a picture. Upon the shaft F is a wheel,V, having on it pins N and a plate, P. One end of the bar K catches upon the pins N, and the other end swings upon the pin J. This pin J is fast to the arm H, and this arm H is of the same piece as the shaft Gr and the arms I and L. The shaft G swings in bearings on the stationary arms T. The arm I is underneath the opening Q in the roof, through which the coin is put into the bank. When the coin is put in it presses down upon the arm I, swinging it away, and through it moving the hook K to catchupon another of the pins N 5 and when it passes by the end of the arm I the weight in the arm L swings the shaft G, and through it draws upon the hook K. As this hook has, by the insertion of the coin, been advanced to catch upon the proper one of the pins N, its return movement turns the wheel V, the shaft F, and the picture-prism O D E. The turning of this prism exposes before the openin g X another of its sides .with the picture upon it. It therefore follows that the putting in of a coin changes the picture exposed to view; and this change of pictures is supposed to be attractive enough to induce children to make frequent deposits in the bank.

' The plate I? on the wheel V and the hook Kare of such shapes that when they reach the proper point on their motion they shall lock together, as shown in the drawing, and stop the prism with one of its sides parallel to the front of the bank, instead of permitting it to go too far because of its momentum. There are a multitude of shapes which the hook and plate could have to accomplish this locking whenthe proper point is reached. Indeed, one of the pins N, other than that upon which K is hooked, might serve as the equivalent-of the plate P. There is no reason why I should be confined to any particular form of these locking parts.

When the hook is moved forward to catch upon another pin preparatory to revolving the prism, its simple drag might movethe wheel the wrong way, so as to throw the pin beyond the reach of the hook. In order to guard against failure to operate from this cause I have given a little more friction than would come from thebearings of the shaft F by having the weight taken from one of these bearings and thrown upon the circumference of the wheel V. This wheel rests upon the stationary plate-W, as seen in the drawing.

It will be observed that the change of the pictures is not eifected by the weight of the coin. This might easily be done, if desired; but it seems to me that it would require a construction too delicate to be really practicable to'allow so little weight as that of an ordinary coin to do so much work. Here the coin is pushed in, instead of dropped in; and

the pushing in of the coin against the arm I lifts the weighted arm L. When the penny passes by the end of I the weight of L acts as the moving power to revolve the prism.

It is a very natural and obvious modification of my invention to have the hook K made so as to push instead of pullin turning the prism; In that case the crowding in of the penny would directly revolve the prism, instead of lifting a weight the fall. of which should do the work.

In Fig. 3 the motion of the prism is checked wheel from turning backward. In this case the weight of the bar K acts to turn the prism.

In Fig. 5 the shaft G of the vibrating arms ,der might be used, or a plate with a flat suris in a plane perpendicular to that of the prism. The details of construction are obvious.

In Fig. 6 two ways of checking the motion of the prism are shown. One is the swinging of the point h of lever 11' into the notches V of the wheel V The other is the sliding of the bar K against the fixed pin N3 so that when one of the pins N strikes against its side the bar cannot swing away before it, but stops the pin and the wheel from moving farther.

The shafts F and G may be made concentric, if desired.

Indeed, there are many obvious modifications of the invention which maybe made,

and the equivalents of these different parts are very numerous; but it is unnecessary to specify them all, since enough have beenshown to indicate the scope of the invention, and to make it plain that I cannot confine myself to exact shapes and details of construction.

Instead of a prism for the pictures, a cylinface having different pictures upon this one surface, and revolving on an axis perpendicular to this face.

I claim- In a toy bank, the combination of the picture-prism O I) E, the shaft F, and the wheel V, having pins N and plate P, with each other,

and with hooked bar K and the vibrating Witnesses:

O. O. MURDOCK, W. L. WILDER. 

